The University of Iowa

Eric Goodman

Eric Goodman was born in Brooklyn and educated at Yale and Stanford. For many years he directed the creative writing program at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He also founded Miami’s Low-Residency M.F.A. program and directed it from 2015-2018. Goodman’s five previous novels include Twelfth and Race, Child of My Right Hand, and In Days of Awe. He’s written episodic television, rock and roll lyrics, and more than 200 essays and stories that appeared in publications including North American Review, Travel and Leisure, LA Times Traveling in Style, Saveur, and Glamour. Goodman lives in upstate New York and Sonoma County with Susan Morgan, who lent her name and family history to the narrator of his sixth book, part novel, part memoir: Cuppy and Stew: The Bombing of Flight 629, A Love Story, which will be published in May, 2020, by IFSF Publishing.

Instructor Events

Write Funny to Me

Weekend June 20 to June 21 2020
Instructor(s): 
Eric Goodman

This weekend workshop is designed for prose writers of all levels, scribblers of fiction or creative nonfiction who would like to learn how to be funny, or in many cases, funnier, on the page. Whether a writer’s intentions are ultimately serious or lighthearted, being able to make readers laugh is a sure way to attract and to hold their attention. If you can amuse readers, they’ll follow you straight to the cash register. Just ask Sedaris.

 

Transforming Life into Writing

Weeklong June 21 to June 26 2020
Instructor(s): 
Eric Goodman

Transforming life into writing is an individual process, as individual as the writing we each struggle to produce. For many writers, blurring the facts until they’re not sure what is true and what is made up is an essential part of the process. But what if the life you’re trying to transform isn’t your own? And how do you transform the life materials you’ve started with and make them feel fresh and vibrant on the page, rather than just retell something that’s already happened, with the danger that it will just lie there, still and lifeless?